Search

Transport efficiency cannot be imagined outside of strategic management – an aspect to which universities, part of the „triple helix” model, pay close attention. As the complexity of public organizations has increased and mobility has become a key issue for their efficiency, several universities in Romania have developed their own fleets to meet the needs of moving people or delivering goods. Based on data collected through a series of interviews, this article proposes a comparative analysis of some aspects of the strategic management of the car fleets of the Babeș-Bolyai University, the West University of Timișoara and the Technical University of Cluj-Napoca. The results indicate that the fleets tend to be more efficient the newer the vehicles are, i.e. not older than 10 years. The paper also underlines the fact that fleet efficiency can only be achieved through a regular analysis of the factors that generate additional costs and their elimination as part of a broader strategic management strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

„In a job of writing, to do it well you have to live it”, said, half century ago, the great American sociologist Charles Wright Mills. That's not an easy task, one may argue, if you want to fully embrace it with its meanings and prescriptions altogether. I took his request onboard very seriously, especially knowing that in the nowadays liquid society that kind of writing could be the (only) type of text production meant to resist a bit longer than a split-second the all-encompassing melting processes. The challenge of this paper was not to simply present various life experiences of my own, something that I have done already in my previous works, where I employed (auto)ethnography and participant objectivation as a methodological toolbox (here too), but to incorporate epistemologically, through the act of writing, distinct Lebenswelten into mine, and even to live them. Being caught up in the last years in the process of reviewing doctoral theses (which is both a pleasant and a painful task to handle), with every single PhD manuscript that I have received, I got to know (practically and epistemologically) that I had a text and (references to) a lifeworld in my hands. How can one deal with such an issue? There are two possible answers: one can follow the institutional-administrative way or take the unpaved road of pondering on the intellectual craftsmanship of the (thesis) work. This time, I choose to follow a dusty and shaky path instead of an immaculate and stiff one. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Educational evaluation reflects the effectiveness and efficiency of teaching approaches, providing knowledge, regulate and optimize the educational process. Assessment and self-evaluation must be addressed closely with educational aims, content and teaching-learning strategies. Any change in the curriculum one of the components will generate logically changes, adjustments to the teaching - learning - evaluation. If school evaluation, errors are largely subjective evaluation by distorting the relationship between student performance and the actual level of qualification level, grade or marks awarded by the teacher assessor. In fact, it appears that the level and dynamics of grades awarded no longer reflect the true level of student performance and dynamics. The paper aims to demonstrate the methods of evaluation must provide both the teacher and evaluation subjects relevant information about their level of training, and thus the quality of education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

By using evaluations for the socio-economic and development programs, the European Union (EU) played a decisive role for the introduction of evaluation as a management tool in Romania, as well as in the other Member States. A proper management of the implementation of the EU programs has been a constant concern of the Romanian administration. Since its accession to the EU on January 1, 2007, Romania became responsible for administrating the evaluation of EU funded programs, under the Extended Decentralization Implementation System (EDIS). The paper is trying to examine how the experience gained throughout the independent evaluations of the pre-accession funds generated knowledge for learning and could further contribute to the development of the public policies evaluation practice in Romania. The hypothesis is that experience generated by independent evaluation use of pre-accession EU funds will contribute to further expansion of the evaluation practice to the national public policies. The methodology employed in this paper relies on empirical research of all relevant documents related to the both interim evaluations: Phare and Structural Instruments. The opinion of the key stakeholders on the evaluation practice was also considered, by applying a specific questionnaire regarding the evaluation use, combined with interviews of the key stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mental demands in occupational environments increased in the current socioeconomic context, this trend imposing stress management policies to promote health at work, in particular mental health. There are many methods and assessment tools belonging mainly to psychology, and can be used successfully in support of mental health promotion as a requirements argument among workers. This paper outlines some of the methods currently used in the U.S. and Europe, and also proposes the using of stress control card at work, as a very accessible instrument for Romania. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background. It is a well known fact that stroke induces, more or less, a decline of the cognitive functions in most clinical cases. Aims. In this paper, we focused on the intensity of decline of the spatial capacity, in other words, the mechanisms which help us to understand and cope with our environment, transforming images and operating in a tridimensional field (3D). Methods. Two groups of patients were formed: group I was the control group comprising people who had never suffered any stroke and group II comprised patients who had suffered one stroke in the last 6 months. We evaluated both groups with Psychological Cognitive Aptitudes Test Battery (PCATB), using two tests which covered the concept "Spatial Ability": "Transforming mental images test" and the "Spatial Orientation Test". Results. The patients from the ischemic stroke group obtained lower scores at both tests (p<0.01) of "spatial ability" than the subjects from the non-stroke group. Conclusions. Evaluating and understanding the physiopatological aspects of spatial abilities mechanisms is useful and necessary in the rehabilitation process regarding post stroke patients. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]